A    SIX-HOUR 
SHIFT 


I 


I  LIE  still,  with  eyes  closed,  for  a 
few  moments  before  rising, 
listening  to  the  drumming  of  the 
rain  on  the  deck  overhead,  and  the 
gurgle  of  the  scupper-pipes  outside 
in  the  alleyway.  I  sort  out  drowsily 
the  familiar  vibrations:  the  faint, 
delicate  rhythm  of  the  dynamo,  the 
hammer  of  a  pump,  the  leisurely 
rumble  and  hiss  of  the  refrigerator. 
Suddenly  a  hideous  jar  close  at  hand: 
the  Fourth  Engineer  is  making  tea  in 
the  galley,  and  has  dropped  the 
poker.  I  look  sideways  at  my  watch. 
It  is  now  five  minutes  to  two.  I 
decide  to  get  up  and  dress. 

I  reflect  on  the  fact  that  to-day  is 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

the  anniversary  of  our  departure 
from  a  home  port.  For  a  year,  with 
but  one  or  two  days  of  rest,  we  have 
been  dressing  at  five  minutes  to  two. 
For  a  year  the  Armee  d'Orient  has 
been  fed  with  frozen  meat  from  our 
insulated  holds.  I  recall  a  sentence 
in  a  recent  letter  from  an  officer  on 
the  Western  front.  It  seems  to  put 
the  matter  succinctly.  "War,"  he 
says,  "is  like  trade;  only  indirectly  in- 
teresting.'* And  again,  lower  down, 
he  remarks,  "It  isn't  the  horror  of 
war  that  makes  a  man  tired,  or  even 
the  danger  and  bloodshed;  it  is  the 
infernal  monotony  of  it." 

So  I  suppose  we  have  no  corner  in 
monotony!  I  finish  dressing  (it  is 
now  five  minutes  past  two,  but  no 
matter),  and  go  into  the  mess-room 
for  a  cup  of  tea.  The  Fourth  Engi- 
neer is  there,  also  my  colleague  whom 
I  am  relieving,  and  the  Third  Officer 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

in  pajamas.  This  last  person  is 
suffering  from  insomnia,  which  is 
not  surprising,  since  he  drinks  strong 
tea  at  10:30  p.  m.  He  is  now  drink- 
ing strong  tea  at  2  a.  m.,  on  the 
principle  of  poison  counteracting  poi- 
son, I  suppose.  Anyhow,  he  does 
nothing  all  day,  so  it  doesn*t  matter. 
The  Fourth  Engineer  is  a  hospit- 
able soul  and  makes  me  toast.  He 
is  on  duty  all  night  in  the  main 
engine-room.  He  is  a  lanky,  im- 
mature, good-tempered  youth,  with 
nice  eyes.  He  knows  I  like  toast. 
In  return,  I  am  looking  the  other 
way  when  the  cook  gives  him  a 
pocketful  of  eggs  out  of  the  cold- 
storage  rooms.  I  like  him.  He 
laughs  easily  and  bears  no  malice. 
Like  most  East  Anglians,  he  has  a 
subtle  refinement  of  mind  that  will 
stand  him  in  good  stead  through  life. 
Among  the  dour  north  countrymen 

5 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

who  throng  the  ship,  he  is  almost 
feminine. 

While  I  eat  my  toast,  I  listen  to 
their  conversation.  It  does  not 
amount  to  much.  How  could  it? 
We  have  been  together  a  year.  We 
are,  occasionally,  rather  tired  of  each 
other.  We  are  each  painfully  con- 
scious of  the  other's  faults.  Most 
subjects  of  which  we  know  anything 
have  been  bled  white  of  all  interest. 
There  are  neither  mysteries  to  attract 
nor  revelations  to  anticipate.  "The 
End  of  the  War"  and  "When  the 
Ship  will  go  Home  "  are  taboo.  Most 
of  us  take  refuge  in  light  badinage. 
Others,  like  the  Third  Officer  and  his 
colleagues,  play  bridge  for  three  hours 
every  night.  Some  study  languages 
and  musical  instruments;  but  there 
are  not  many  of  these.  Some  drink 
secretly,  and  are  reported  later  as 
"sick."  Most  of  us,  however,  do  sim- 
6 


rm 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

ply  nothing.    We  sit,  or  stand,  or  walk 
or  lie,  with  one  dull  thought  in  our 
minds,  one  vague  image  before  our  eyes 
— the  thought,  the  image,  of  Release. 
It  is  an  unusual  state  of  mind.     I 
had  almost  written  ^"^a  curious  psy- 
chological phenomenon,"   but  I  am 
anxious  to  make  the  reader  under- 
stand, and  plain  words  are  best.     It 
is,  I  say,  an  unusual  state  of  mind. 
From  the  Commander  to  the  scullion, 
from  the  Chief  Engineer  to  the  coal- 
passer,    we    have    all    gradually    ar- 
rived at  a  mood  which  is  all  the  more 
passionate  because  it  is  inarticulate. 
With  every  other  outlet  dammed,  our 
whole  spiritual  life  is  forced  along  one 
narrow  channel  of  intense  desire.    We 
want  to  go  home.    It  sounds  childish, 
but  that  is  because  the  reader  does 
not  understand.     When  he  has  read 
through  this  essay,    I    hope   he  will 
understand.     I  mean  him  to. 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

I  drink  my  tea  and  eat  my  toast, 
and  having  given  Thomas  a  saucer  of 
milk,  I  go  on  duty.  Thomas  is  a 
large  black  cat,  who  shares  my  vigil. 
Allons  done! 

I  go  aft  to  the  refrigerating-room 
along  a  covered  alleyway,  which  none 
the  less  leaks;  and  Thomas,  who 
follows,  makes  little  runs  to  avoid  the 
drips.  It  is  raining  as  it  can  rain 
only  in  the  Balkans.  There  is  some- 
thing Scottish  about  this  rain,  some- 
thing dour,  persistent,  and  irritating; 
and  this  old  obsolete  banana  boat, 
converted  into  a  cold-storage,  leaks 
in  every  seam  of  her  boat-deck, 
which  is  all  warped  by  the  blazing 
suns  of  a  Balkan  summer.  We  skip 
in,  Thomas  and  I,  in  where  there  is 
light  and  warmth  and  comfortable 
noises,  and,  in  our  various  fashions, 
carry  on. 

It  is  no  part  of  these  reflections  to 
8 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

treat  of  refrigeration.  That,  being 
part  of  modern  war,  is  uninteresting. 
My  oiler,  a  faded  Irishman  with  a  bad 
leg,  does  most  of  the  work.  I  note 
the  log  on  the  desk,  thumb  the  com- 
pressor rods,  take  a  few  thermometer 
readings,  feel  the  crank  bearings  of 
the  engine,  and  feel  bored.  Thomas, 
after  watching  a  couple  of  cock- 
roaches who  persist  in  risking  their 
lives  along  the  edge  of  the  evapo- 
rator-casing, settles  down  to  snooze  on 
the  vise-bench.  For  a  time  I  envy 
him.  I  want  to  sleep  again  myself. 
I  sit  down  near  the  desk,  and, 
sharply  alert  as  to  the  machine,  I 
permit  the  rest  of  me,  my  soul  and 
body  let  us  say,  to  take  forty  winks. 
I  leave  the  explanation  to  competent 
psychologists.  It  can  be  done.  I 
need  no  Psychical  Research  Society 
to  tell  me  that  my  soul  and  my 
intellect  are  differentiate  entities.     I 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

know  it,  because  I  have  kept  six-hour 
watches,  because  I  have  been  on 
night  duty,  because — because  of 
many  private  reasons,  of  which  it  is 
not  seemly  that  I  should  speak. 
Suffice  it. 

For  an  hour  I  sit  with  folded  arms, 
while  the  machine  pursues  its 
leisurely  never-ending  race;  while  the 
brine-pump  lifts  first  one  leg  and 
then  the  other,  gingerly,  as  though  in 
deep  snow;  while  the  electric  fans 
revolve  noiselessly  in  their  corners; 
while  the  faded  Irishman  moves  un- 
easily from  side  to  side  as  he  ministers 
to  the  needs  of  the  machine.  Sub- 
consciously I  am  aware  of  all  that 
goes  on.  So  much  for  the  experience 
^.nd.  flair  born  of  a  dozen  years  at  sea. 

And,  to  tell  the  truth,  this  is  the 
most  hopeless  time  of  the  day.  I 
once  saw  a  picture,  well  known,  no 
doubt:  A  Hopeless  Dawn.     My  ex- 

lO 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

perience  is,  that  all  dawns  are  hope- 
less, to  those  who  have  to  witness 
them.  The  legend  of  the  early  palse- 
oHthic  ancestor  who  spent  a  night  of 
terror  after  seeing  the  sun  sink  out  of 
sight,  and  who  leaped  for  joy  at  the 
dawning,  is  too  thin.  He  is  no 
ancestor  of  mine.  For  me  the  peri- 
od comprised  between  the  hour  of 
two  and  four  is  one  of  unrelieved 
vacuity.  The  minutes,  the  very 
seconds,  seem  to  deliberate.  When, 
after  what  seems  a  long  quarter  of  an 
hour,  I  look  again  at  the  clock,  that 
white-faced,  impassive  umpire  has 
registered  exactly  three  minutes. 
Well,  it  is  three  minutes  past  three. 
I  get  up  abruptly,  startling  the  faded 
Irishman  who  is  standing  near  me, 
smoking  a  dirty  pipe  and  thinking  of 
Heaven  knows  what,  and  go  outside 
into  the  open  air.  And  outside  in  the 
open  air  is  Salonika. 
II 


munmmmmim'StSi 


II 


THE  rain,  in  an  inconclusive 
way,  has  ceased,  though  the 
scupper-pipes  still  gurgle  and 
cluck  with  the  water  running  from 
above.  I  walk  along  the  after  deck, 
climb  up  the  heap  of  sandbags  built 
round  the  gun-platform,  and  take 
refuge  in  a  sort  of  canvas  sentry-box 
which  the  gunners  have  improvised 
out  of  ammunition  cases,  a  spring 
mattress,  and  some  old  tarpaulins. 
Here  I  am  more  than  ever  solitary  at 
this  hour.  The  gun,  looking  like  a 
gaunt  cab-horse  in  its  gray  canvas 
shroud,  droops  its  muzzle  slightly,  as 
though  dispirited  because  we  go  so 
rarely  to  sea.     Nothing  else  can  I 

12 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

see  of  the  ship,  save  the  flagpole,  a 
ghostly  outpost  of  humanity,  for 
beyond  it  the  world  has  dissolved 
into  a  sad  chaos  of  water  and  sky. 
There  is  no  wind.  The  waters  of  the 
Gulf  lie  placid  and  obscure.  The 
sky-line  has  vanished,  and  one  has 
the  illusion  of  floating  in  infinite 
space,  in  a  sort  of  aerial  Xoah's  Ark 
without  any  animals.  The  patches 
of  white  in  the  cloud-canopy  are 
reflected  with  eerie  accuracy  in  the 
lifeless  and  invisible  mirror  below. 
One  feels  a  slight  vertigo,  for  all 
things  seem  to  have  been  swallowed 
up,  and  even  Time,  that  last  refuge 
of  saints  and  sinners,  seems  to  have 
stopped. 

The  rain  comes  as  a  relief,  as 
though  the  works  of  the  universe 
were  getting  under  way  again.  My 
knees  being  exposed,  I  decide  that  I 
have  had  enough  of  nature  in  solu- 

13 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

tion  and  climb  down  from  the  gun- 
platform.  The  moon,  which  is  shin- 
ing behind  the  dense  clouds, 
brightens  the  patches  of  white,  and 
these  are  reflected  on  the  wet  deck. 
Picking  my  way  carefully,  for  all 
scuttles  are  screened,  I  reach  the 
machine-room.  Nothing  is  changed 
save  the  hands  of  the  clock:  it  is 
now  half-past  three.  The  faded 
Irishman  has  become  a  shade  more 
brisk  in  his  movements.  From  now 
on  he  will  become  more  and  more 
active  and  intelligent  in  carrying  out 
his  duties,  until  he  reaches  a  climax 
of  senseless  energy  at  four  by  break- 
ing into  speech  with  a  "Well,  good- 
night, sir,''  and  vanishing  into  his 
kennel.  His  place  is  taken  by  a 
somnolent  negro. 

At  four  the  rain  is  pouring  down 
with  all  its  old  violence,  and  I  make 
my  way  along  to  the  mess-room  for 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

more  tea.  I  bump  into  a  damp 
silent  man,  a  Greek  sailor,  on  night 
duty.  He  is  supposed  to  keep  a 
lookout  at  the  gangway  and  tend  the 
galley-fires.  He  does  both  very  well. 
Some  sailors  are  poor  hands  at  stok- 
ing. The  Russian,  who  occasionally 
acts  as  night-watchman,  is  no  good. 
They  say  Russians  understand  tea. 
Our    Russian    understands    nothing. 

The  Japanese  second  cook,  on 
being  called  by  the  Greek  mariner, 
is  furious  with  the  fire.  The  Greek 
and  Arab  firemen  do  not  understand 
that  coal-dust  is  unsuitable  for  galley 
fires.  There  are,  at  times,  inter- 
national complications. 

The  Fourth  Engineer  and  I  once 
more  foregather  in  the  mess-room.  I 
make  the  tea,  and  I  do  it  this  way. 
The  tea-pot,  of  white  china,  is  rinsed 
and  scalded  with  boiling  water.  I 
then  put  in  the  correct  quantity  of 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

tea,  which  is  an  art  acquired  only  in 
the  school  of  experience.  Then  I 
pour  on  the  correct  quantity  of  fresh- 
boiling  water— another  art.  The  tea 
is  left  to  steep  on  the  hob  for  as  long 
as  it  takes  to  cut,  toast,  and  butter 
two  slices  of  bread.  The  tea  is  now 
ready.  I  pour  it.  Its  colour  is 
superb.  Having  done  all  this,  I 
cast  a  look  of  triumph  on  the  Fourth 
Engineer,  who  informs  me  that  there 
is  no  milk;  very  much  as  a  silly  young 
staff  officer  might  tell  his  general  that 
the  army  has  no  ammunition.  I 
retire  to  my  room  and  return  with  a 
cream-jug  full  of  condensed  milk  of 
an  age  so  vague  that  only  boiling 
water  can  reduce  it  to  a  liquid  form. 
Thereupon  we  sit  down,  and  having 
exhausted  every  conceivable  subject 
of  conversation  six  months  ago,  we 
drink  and  munch  in  silence. 

The  militarists    say    that  war  is 
i6 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

necessary  to  develop  the  soul  of  a 
nation;  without  war  men  would  sink 
into  stupidity  and  sloth. 

Having  eaten  and  drunk  in  silence, 
we  light  cigarettes  and  go  away,  he 
down  below  to  pump  the  boilers  up, 
I  to  my  machine-room  to  see  how  the 
somnolent  negro  is  going  on.  He  is 
going  on  very  much  as  I  expected. 
He  wanders  like  a  sleep-walker 
among  the  machinery,  attending  to 
his  duties  after  his  own  fashion.  I 
make  up  the  log  to  four  o'clock, 
examine  certain  things  that  may  go 
wrong,  but  never  do,  and  go  out  into 
the  alleyway  again. 

The  hopeless  dawn  is  approaching. 
A  ghastly  pallor  now  faintly  out- 
lines a  mountain  which  I  indolently 
call  Ben  Lomond.  The  Gulf  of 
Salonika  is  almost  entirely  sur- 
rounded by  land,  and  the  city  is 
built  on  the  slopes  of  a  mountain. 

17 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Ben  Lomond  is  farther  off  to  the 
eastward;  other  mountains  form  ram- 
parts to  the  west  and  north,  while  the 
Vardar  River  delta  insinuates  itself 
among  the  more  rugged  features  in  a 
most  curious  way.  Southward,  be- 
yond the  headland  that  marks  the 
entrance,  the  horizon  is  closed  by  the 
sublime  peak  of  Olympos.  The  Gulf, 
therefore,  is  a  kind  of  bowl,  against 
the  rim  of  which  the  clouds  are 
condensed  and  held.  Under  their 
caps  of  cotton-woolly  clouds  the 
mountains  are  white  with  snow. 

We  have  come  out  of  the  void,  and 
dark  blobs  are  now  recognizable  as 
ships.  Lights  glitter  along  the  shore. 
A  motor-lighter  passes,  her  engine 
exhaust  beating  the  still  air  like  a 
pulse.  The  silence  is  no  longer  pro- 
found or  tragic.  The  world  of  men, 
the  world  of  living  men,  is  coming 
back,    and    I    am    glad.     I    have    a 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

weakness  for  the  world  of  living  men. 
A  steamer,  weighing  her  anchor  with 
much  puffing  of  steam  from  her 
windlass-exhaust,  blows  her  whistle. 
It  is  a  trumpet-blast,  completing  the 
rout  of  the  powers  of  darkness. 

There  is  a  crash  from  our  galley. 
Someone,  most  probably  the  Japanese 
second  cook,  has  dropped  the  poker. 
The  Japanese  second  cook  is  a 
creature  of  moods,  often  passionate. 
He  is,  so  they  say,  a  student  of 
philosophy  at  Tokyo  University.  He 
has  come  to  sea  to  earn  more  money 
to  complete  his  courses — of  philos- 
ophy, I  suppose.  The  chief  cook, 
who  is  a  Chinaman,  has  presumably 
completed  his  studies  in  philosophy, 
while  the  third  cook,  who  is  an 
Italian,  has  never  studied  philosophy 
at  all.  Anyhow,  various  noises  com- 
bine to  inform  me  that  all  three  are 
now  in  the  galley  engaged  in  making 

19 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

bread  and  preparing  breakfast  for  the 
crew  in  a  more  or  less  philosophical 
manner. 

Other  sounds  assert  themselves, 
too.  Weird  moans  from  below  an- 
nounce the  Fourth  Engineer's  success 
with  his  boilers.  A  small  dog  in  the 
firemen's  house  aft  yelps  tediously 
at  an  imaginary  enemy.  He  pre- 
sumes upon  his  rating  as  a  mascot. 
A  sleepy  Greek  boy,  with  weak  eyes 
and  legs,  appears  from  the  forecastle 
with  a  tin  tea-pot.  He  is  reported  to 
be  a  Venizelist.  Venizelists,  I  ob- 
serve, make  poor  sailors.  The  night 
watchman,  who  answers  to  the  name 
of  Papa  Gregovis,  but  whose  political 
tendencies  are  obscure,  fades  away 
forward.  The  oiler  in  the  main 
engine-room,  a  one-eyed  mulatto, 
carries  his  tea-can  along. 

So  an  hour  passes. 

Once  again  the  rain  has  ceased  and 

20 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

I  go  out  on  the  after  deck  and  walk  to 
and  fro.  I  discover  the  crowded 
roadstead  of  Salonika.  Black  blobs 
have  become  transports,  misty  phan- 
toms have  changed  into  hospital 
ships,  gray  shadows  into  men-of-war. 
One  hospital  ship  is  preparing  to 
move — does  move,  as  I  watch  her. 
She  is  girdled  with  a  necklace  of 
emerald  lights.  On  her  rail  is  a  red 
cross  of  electric  lights.  She  is  very 
beautiful,  a  jewelled  wraith  moving 
noiselessly  across  our  bows.  Several 
Greek  schooners,  with  all  sails  set, 
float  near  us  on  the  glassy  water, 
waiting  for  a  wind.  Time  is  no  ob- 
ject with  them.  One  appears  close 
to  our  quarter,  like  a  ghost  of  some 
past  age,  a  fabulous  blue  galleon  with 
silver  sails.  She  is  part  of  the  ridicu- 
lous unreality  of  the  whole  business. 


21 


Ill 

I  DECIDE  suddenly  to  have  a 
pipe,  and  go  in  to  get  tobacco 
and  matches.  However,  the 
mess-room  steward  is  bringing  in  tea 
and  toast  for  two,  so  I  postpone  the 
pipe.  As  I  sit  down  on  the  stool  by 
the  desk,  the  Fourth  Engineer  comes 
in,  wiping  his  hands  on  a  piece  of 
waste.  He  is  gay.  It  is  nearly  six. 
The  boilers,  sanitary,  and  fresh- 
water tanks  are  all  full.  Everything 
is  in  order.  xAt  seven  he  will  dive 
into  his  room  and  be  no  more  seen. 
He  sits  down  beside  me  and  partakes 
of  his  seventh  cup  of  tea  and  piece  of 
toast  since  nine  o'clock  last  night. 
He  wants  to  go  up  for  an  examina- 

22 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

tion.  He  has  been  away  fifteen 
months  as  Fourth.  He  will  probably 
be  away  another  fifteen.  He  is  los- 
ing his  chances.  And  they  need 
young  men  at  home. 

One  of  the  great  advantages  of 
war,  the  militarists  tell  us,  is  that 
young  men  get  their  chance.  War 
gives  us  scope,  provokes  initiative, 
stimulates  the  soul,  quickens  the 
brain. 

With  my  pipe  alight,  I  take  up  my 
walk  on  the  after  deck.  The  setting 
moon  is  a  mere  pool  of  radiance,  like 
an  electric  lamp  swathed  in  muslin. 
A  rift  in  the  clouds  over  Ben  Lomond 
shows  a  pale  blue  patch  of  sky  with 
the  morning  star  shining  in  the 
middle  of  it.  The  lights  of  the  port 
shine  like  stars,  too,  in  the  rain- 
washed  air.  Men  move  about  the 
ship,  launches  begin  to  cross  and 
recross  the  harbour.     A  steamer  near 

23 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

us  suddenly  wakes  into  life.  Electric 
clusters  and  arc-lights  blaze  about 
her  decks,  derricks  swing  and  winches 
rattle.  Another  ship,  a  collier,  hauls 
up  her  anchor  and  very  cautiously, 
very  stealthily,  approaches  a  cruiser, 
as  though  she  were  about  to  pounce 
upon  her  without  warning.  But  the 
cruiser  is  in  full  possession  of  all  her 
faculties  apparently,  for  hundreds  of 
men  appear  on  deck,  whistles  are 
blown,  fenders  are  lowered,  ropes  are 
thrown  out,  and  at  length  the  two  lie 
in  a  close  embrace,  and  the  cruiser's 
Morse  light  winks  rapidly  several 
times  to  inform  the  world  that  all  is 
as  it  should  be. 

As  I  turn  from  this  fascinating 
spectacle  I  behold  the  French  lighter 
approaching.  The  French  lighter  is 
a  cumbrous  old  Turkish  sailing  ship 
propelled  by  a  minute  French  tug 
lashed   to   her   side.     She   seems   to 

24 


■■ 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

have  her  arm  round  the  tug's  shoul-  m 

ders.     Loud    hammering    announces 

the  steam  making  its  way  along  our 

water-logged  deck-pipes.        A  shrill  ^ 

whistle  from  the  French  tug  elicits  a  '| 

similar  whistle  from  someone  on  our 

upper   deck.         Several    soldiers    in 

khaki  make  their  appearance  about 

the    ship.         The    French    tug    and  *^ 

lighter  come  alongside  and  are  made 

fast.     A  swarm  of  dirty  Greeks  climb 

up  and  begin  to  remove  the  hatches. 

You  cannot  honestly  say  the  day 
has  broken.  It  is  much  more  as 
though  the  blank  opacity  of  the  night 
had  worn  thin.  That  blue  rent  in 
the  dirty  tarpaulin  of  the  sky  over 
Ben  Lomond  has  closed  up,  and  a  fine 
misty  drizzle  begins  to  fall. 

I  retire  to  the  door  of  the  machine- 
room,  where  I  encounter  my  friend 
the  French  sergeant-major.  He  is  a 
handsome  Marseillais,  by  profession 

25 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

a  dealer  in  antique  furniture  and  objets 
d  'art.  For  two  years  he  has  been 
supervising  the  transportation  of  beef 
and  mutton  from  ship  to  shore.  He 
is  of  the  opinion  that  war  develops 
our  higher  faculties  to  the  utmost, 
and  that  without  war  civilized  man 
would  degenerate  into  a  gross  pre- 
occupation with  material  needs. 
However,  just  now  he  is  good-hum- 
ouredly  frantic  because  there  is  no 
steam.  I  inquire  what  it  is  that  it 
is.  He  waves  his  arms.  I  say, 
"P^j  de  vapeurV  Ah!  he  nods  and 
waves  his  arms  again.  I  wave  mine. 
In  a  species  of  utilitarian  French 
which  I  find  that  French  men — and 
women — understand,  I  inform  him 
that  the  vapeur  is  on  its  way,  but  that 
it  is  being  retarded  by  the  condensa- 
tion in  the  pipes,  due  to  the  odious 
weather.  He  agrees,  and  waves  his 
arms.  I  nod  vigorously  and  wave 
16 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

mine.     We  are  brothers.     We  shake  | 

hands.  He  hands  me  a  copy  of 
LOpinion  or  Llndependant^  diminu- 
tive news-sheets  dear  to  the  heart  of 
the  Armee  d*Orient.      I  deluge  him  || 

with  thanks  and  he  returns  to  the 
hatch  to  load  the  Greeks  with  op- 
probrious epithets. 

While  perusing  the  little  French 
paper,  I  am  accosted  by  the  philoso- 
phical second  cook,  the  dark-eyed 
gentleman  from  Tokyo,  and  the  very 
human  third  cook,  a  dark-eyed 
gentleman  from  Naples,  who  wish  to  . 

enter  the  cold  storage.  I  give  them 
the  keys  and  they  vanish  into  a 
cupboard-like  cavity  where  they  blow 
on  their  fingers  and  proceed  to  quarrel 
over  legs  of  beef,  corpses  of  sheep,  or 
other  less  desirable  provender. 

The  French  paper  tells  me  a  great 
deal  that  I  wish  to  know.     I  rejoice 
particularly    in     the    very    cavalier 
27 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

attitude  it  takes  up  with  regard  to 
neutrals.  It  trounces  Constantine 
very  much  as  the  French  sergeant- 
major  trounces  the  Greek  cargo-men. 
I  pass  half  an  hour  very  pleasantly 
with  L  'Opinion  or  L  'Independant. 
I  find  it  is  seven  o'clock.  The 
decks  are  being  washed.  Firemen 
and  engine-room  men,  a  variegated 
crowd  of  British,  Greek,  Arab,  and 
negro,  pass  along  and  go  below. 
Carpets  are  being  shaken,  scuttle- 
brasses  polished,  floors  scrubbed. 
The  city  of  Salonika  becomes  dimly 
visible,  a  gray  smudge  picked  out 
with  white  columns  and  red  domes. 
A  battleship  is  going  out  to  practise, 
and  presently  you  hear  the  heavy 
bang-bang  of  her  big  guns  reverberat- 
ing against  the  bluffs  of  the  Kara- 
burnou.  Stone  quarries  behind  the 
town  take  up  the  tale,  and  for  an 
hour  or  so  you  will  hear  the  explo- 
28 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

sions   sullenly  booming  in   the   still,  | 

damp  air. 

The  hours  drag  on.     It  is  a  quarter 
to  eight.     My  somnolent  negro  sud-  [ 

denly     becomes     wide     awake     and  \ 

hurries  along  the  deck  to  call  his 
rehef.  I  make  a  general  and  par- 
ticular examination  of  everything  in 
my  care,  and,  rubbing  my  chin, 
decide  to  shave.  There  is  a  tendency 
to  grow  slack  and  slovenly  in  cir- 
cumstances like  these.  One  says, 
"\Yho  cares?"  and  ''What  does  it 
matter?"    A  slow  poison  of  indolence  i 

is  in  the  air.  I  must  shave.  As  a 
rule  I  am  negligent,  but  this  morning 
I  make  a  hasty  decision  that  this 
must  end.  I  will,  I  announce  to  my- 
self, shave,  breakfast,  and  go  ashore. 
As  a  rule  I  turn  in  as  soon  as  I  have 
eaten.     I  will  go  ashore. 

I  tell  my  mate  I  am  going  and  seek 
information    concerning    a    convey- 
29 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

ance.  I  inquire  of  the  Second  Officer 
which  lighter  is  going  away  first.  He 
does  not  know.  He  never  does  know. 
He  is  the  most  complete  agnostic  I 
have  ever  met.  I  ask  one  of  the 
soldiers,  whose  king  and  country 
have  taken  him  away  from  his  job  on 
a  farm  and  set  him  to  tally  meat. 
He  says  he  thinks  the  extra  British 
lighter  will  finish  first.  I  then  dis- 
cover the  extra  British  contingent 
loading  twenty  tons  of  canned  goods 
— sardines,  salmon,  and  cling  peaches; 
why  cling  peaches,  I  cannot  say.  Sol 
dropdown  the  rope  ladder  to  the  light- 
er*s  deck  and  discover  the  two  naval 
stokers  getting  the  engines  ready 
for  starting.  They  are  Bolinder  en- 
gines. 

If  the  reader  does  not  know  what  a 
Bolinder  engine  is,  he  is  a  happy  man. 
A  Bolinder  engine  is  the  devil.  I  once 
worked  on  a  ship  whose  launch  had  a 

30 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Bolinder  engine,  and  it  nearly  killed 

me. 

By    the    time    the    bulbs    are   hot 
enough  to  start,  the  senior  artificer 
catches  sight  of  me  and  we  fraternize. 
He  is  a  pale  blond  middle-aged  man 
with     the     expression     of     mingled 
humility  and  efficiency  common  to 
lower-deck  ratings  in  the  Navy.  This 
lighter,  he  tells  me,  was  under  fire  at 
Gallipoli.     He  shows  me  a  patch  on 
either  side  of  the  engine-room  plat- 
ing: the  entry  and  exit  of  a  twelve- 
pounder  shell.     It  must  have  passed 
within  a  few  inches  of  his  neck.   With 
this  exception  he  has  led  a  humdrum 
parcels-delivery    sort    of    life.     Sud- 
denly, as  his  assistant  opens  a  valve, 
the  engine  starts  with  a  roar  and  then 
settles  down  to  the  fluttery  beat  and 
cough  of  an  oil  engine  with  the  clutch 
out. 

We  discuss  the  merits  and  demerits 

31 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

of  Bolinder  engines.  I  hazard  the 
remark  that  personally  I  prefer 
steam.  The  man's  face  lights  up  for 
a  moment  as  he  answers:  "Ah,  me, 
too!"  You  know  where  you  are  with 
steam.  Steam  is  the  friend  of  man. 
Steam  engines  are  very  human. 
Their  very  weaknesses  are  under- 
standable. Steam  engines  do  not 
flash  back  and  blow  your  face  in. 
They  do  not  short-circuit  and  rive 
your  heart  with  imponderable  electric 
force.  They  have  arms  and  legs  and 
warm  hearts  and  veins  full  of  warm 
vapour.  We  all  say  that.  Give  us 
steam  every  time.  You  know  where 
you  are  with  steam. 

So  much  for  the  trip  ashore — one 
meets  a  stranger  with  the  knowledge 
of  the  craft.  x'\s  we  climb  up  out  of 
the  tiny  engine-room,  I  observe  that 
we  are  now  inside  the  stone  jetty  of 
the    Greek    harbour.     Several    large 

32 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

transports  are  discharging  men, 
mules,  horses,  guns,  locomotives,  and 
so  on.  We  slip  gently  alongside,  and 
with  a  cheery  word  and  a  shake  of  the 
hand  I  quit  my  friend  with  his  cargo 
of  cling  peaches  and  the  rest,  and 
jump  ashore.  It  occurs  to  me  in 
passing  that  the  letters  from  the  front 
never  mention  cling  peaches  and 
fresh  mutton.  No,  the  burden  of 
their  song  is  always  "bully  beef*  and 
"skilly,"  whatever  that  may  be.  They 
also  speak  disparagingly  of  "tinned 
stuff.*' 

I  cannot  get  those  cling  peaches 
and  sardines  out  of  mv  head. 


33 


IV 

^ND  here  I  am  ashore  in 
/-%  Salonika!  I  feel  absurdly 
shy  amid  so  much  busy  life. 
It  is  almost  as  busy  as  a  provincial 
town  in  England  on  market  days.  I 
feel  something  like  an  escaped  pris- 
oner. They  say  that  convicts,  when 
they  are  liberated,  wander  aimlessly 
about,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with 
their  liberty.  I  feel  just  like  that.  I 
wander  about  among  huge  piles  of 
hardware,  stared  at  critically  by 
sentries  of  all  nations.  I  make  for 
the  Custom  House  Gate,  and  I 
become  suddenly  aware  that  the 
sun  is  shining  through  a  jagged 
rent  in  the  white  clouds  over   Ben 

34 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Lomond,  and  that  I  am  very  warm 
indeed. 

There  is  something  tragic  about 
Salonika.  I  have  visited  many 
goodly  states  and  cities,  and  I  doubt 
if  there  be  one  other  on  the  globe  to 
compare  with  Salonika  in  her  in- 
genious combination  of  splendour  and 
squalor.  She  is  a  dirty  queen,  sitting 
in  filthy  rags,  with  gems  about  her 
noisome  girdle,  and  a  diadem  upon 
her  scrofulous  brow.  She  babbles  in 
all  the  tongues  of  Europe  and  speaks 
none  of  them  aright.  She  has  no 
native  language,  no  native  air.  She 
is  all  things  to  all  men,  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile, Moslem  and  Frank.  She  is 
everything  and  nothing.  The  winds 
of  heaven  blow  among  the  ruined 
turrets  of  her  citadel,  while  the 
mosquitoes  from  the  Vardar  swamps 
sing  ten  million  strong  in  the  purlieus 
of  the  port.     She  is  very  proud.    She 

35 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

has  nothing  left  to  give  but  death, 
yet  the  nations  fling  themselves  upon 
her  and  quarrel  for  the  honour  of  her 
embrace. 

I  was  thinking  all  this  as  I  picked 
my  way  in  the  mud  along  the  road  to 
the  Place  de  la  Liberte,  because  I  had 
thought  of  it  often  before.  It  is  all 
true.  Quitting  the  Custom  House, 
which  is  a  building  of  French  design, 
I  pass  the  Olympos  Palace  Hotel,  an 
edifice  of  Berlin  architecture,  all 
curls  and  whirls  and  involute  swirls. 
At  this  point  is  the  Place  de  la 
Liberte,  facing  the  landing  place 
known  as  Venizelos  Steps.  The 
square  is  not  worthy  of  the  name, 
being  a  mere  wide  strip  of  Venizelos 
Street,  and  consisting  exclusively  of 
cafes.  The  steps  are  flanked  by  two 
kiosks  which  contain  bunks  for  the 
night  watch.  This  is  the  heart  of  the 
city.     Past  this  point  there  rushes  a 

3^ 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

never-ending  tide  of  tram-cars,  pe- 
destrians of  all  nations,  ambulance 
wagons,  motor  lorries,  cavalry  and 
artillery,  donkey  carts  and  mule 
teams,  staff  motor-cars  and  dispatch- 
riders  on  motorcycles — good  men, 
bad  men,  beggar  men,  thieves. 

Along  the  front  Greek  schooners 
are  discharging  charcoal,  paraffin, 
stone,  fish,  vegetables,  and  peanuts. 
Around  the  steps  crowd  many 
launches — British,  French,  Italian, 
Greek,  and  Serbian;  row-boats,  sail- 
boats, ships'  cutters  awaiting  vege- 
tables, and  ship's  dinghies  awaiting 
their  commanders.  Old  ladies  in 
native  costume,  caricatures  of  Queen 
Victoria  as  a  widow,  move  to  and  fro, 
gossiping.  Shoe-shine  boys  almost 
trip  up  the  unwary  stranger  in  their 
endeavours  to  clean  his  boots  by  main 
force.  And  then,  half  a  dozen  strong, 
come  the  news-girls  with  their  loads 

37 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

of  twenty-two  different  newspapers 
in  six  different  languages. 

They  are  not  very  clean  little  girls, 
but  I  regard  them  with  tolerance  as 
they  press  up  to  sell  me  a  Balkan 
News.  They  never  by  any  chance 
mistake  one's  nationality.  I  sup- 
pose the  English  character  is  notice- 
able in  Salonika.  Moreover,  the 
Englishman  is  a  fool  about  money.  I 
know,  because  I  am  a  fool  about 
money;  yet  I  am  not  such  a  fool  as 
some.  The  French,  Italian,  Russian 
officer,  counts  his  change  with 
meticulous  care  and  gives  a  very  very 
small  tip.  The  Britisher,  officer  or 
man,  grasps  the  coins,  looks  at  them 
without  really  knowing  whether  he  is 
being  cheated  or  not,  bestows  munifi- 
cent largesse,  and  strides  out,  leaving 
the  Greek  waiter  full  of  contempt  for 
the  burly  fool  who  parts  from  his 
money  so  easily. 

38 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

This  is  by  the  way.  We  are 
learning  so  many  things  in  this  war, 
that  quite  possibly  the  Englishman 
abroad  may  learn  to  keep  his  money 
in  his  pocket.  Personally,  I  have 
not  much  to  spend,  and  each 
drachma  must  produce  its  utmost 
value.  But  I  can  gratify  my  native 
craving  to  be  thought  a  philan- 
thropist when  I  buy  a  paper.  I  give 
all  those  dirty  little  girls  a  penny 
each. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  do 
not  say  they  are  ugly  little  girls. 
Their  noses  do  not  run  in  the  em- 
barrassing way  common  among  the 
street-children  of  a  northern  clime. 
They  are  all  different.  One  is  dark, 
with  long  thick  brows  over  black  eyes, 
her  hair  in  a  thick  plait.  Another  is 
blonde  and  has  a  red  nose.  Another 
is  quite  tall  and  will  probably  become 
a  dancer,  she  has  such  neat  little  legs 

39 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

and  feet.  Her  stockings,  by  the  way, 
are  not  a  pair.  Another  has  a  pair 
but  no  garters,  and  she  looks  very 
untidy.  Yet  another  has  garters  but 
no  stockings,  and  her  legs  are  very 
dirty.  A  very  tiny  little  person  has 
only  one  forlorn  copy  of  a  Greek 
paper,  and  she  is  thrust  away  by  her 
more  muscular  rivals.  I  give  her  a 
penny,  too.     I  am  popular. 

When  all  are  recompensed  they 
sidle  away,  looking  back  wistfully  for 
a  moment.  I  dare  say  they  are 
wondering  if  I  am  a  millionaire  in 
disguise.  Then  the  whirling  vortex 
of  Venizelos  Steps  sucks  them  in 
again;  they  spy  another  sailor  coming 
ashore,  and  they  collect  and  fling 
themselves  upon  him,  a  compact, 
yelling  Macedonian  phalanx  of 
youthful  amazons. 

Turning  eastward,  one  sees  the 
city  front  curving  very  gently  as  far 
40 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

as  the  White  Tower,  nearly  a  mile 
away.  Beyond  that  superb  land- 
mark the  new  suburban  town  spreads 
out  indefinitely  amid  shabby  foliage. 
The  view  up  Venizelos  Street  is 
closed  by  a  covered-in  bazaar.  The 
yellow  buildings  of  the  front  are  a 
confusing  medley  of  cafes,  cigarette 
shops,  hotel  entrances,  paper  shops, 
hardware  shops,  barbers'  shops, 
cinema  theatres,  Turkish  baths,  a 
fish-market,  farriers'  shops,  caj'es- 
chantantSy  charcoal  stores,  more 
cigarette  shops,  more  cafes;  a  few 
immense  private  houses  with  inter- 
esting courtyards  and  discontented- 
looking  sentries  in  battered  boxes, 
one  or  two  small  houses  with  tre- 
mendous walnut  doors  and  black 
iron  hinges,  bolts,  and  window-bars; 
and  finally,  just  as  the  heat  and  acrid 
smells  from  motors  and  horses  begin 
to  parch  the  throat,  and  the  devilish 


i? 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

cobbles  to  tire  the  unaccustomed 
feet,  there  is  a  cafe  in  a  covered 
garden,  with  the  White  Tower  stand- 
ing alone  in  a  grass  plot  at  the  water- 
side. 


42 


-^^ 


V 


SALONIKA  makes  her  own 
beer,  but  it  is  not  of  uniform 
quality.  Sometimes  the  litre 
will  be  very  palatable.  Often  the 
best  thing  to  do  is  to  leave  it.  Dutch 
beer  is  drunk,  and  is  very  good.  I  am 
afraid  saccharine  takes  the  place  of 
malt  in  the  local  product.  At  the 
worst,  one  can  get  passable  coffee  and 
good  brandy.  Seated  among  the 
uniforms  at  the  little  tables,  you  may 
regard  Salonika  in  a  characteristic 
mood. 

The  sun  shines  strongly  now 
through  immense  piled-up  masses  of 
white  clouds,  and  there  is  sufficient 
wind  to  sail  a  boat  across  the  Gulf. 

43 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

The  Greek  standard  waves  gently 
from  the  top  of  the  White  Tower. 
The  White  Tower,  let  it  be  said,  is  a 
perfectly  round  cylinder  of  white- 
washed stone,  surmounted  by  a 
smaller  turret  and  a  flag-staff.  There 
is  one  small  door  over  which  is  an 
inscription  in  Turkish,  very  beautiful 
to  look  at,  utterly  incomprehensible 
unless  you  know  Turkish.  One  or 
two  small  windows  and  a  small  ledge 
half  way  up  are  the  only  breaks  in  the 
vast,  smooth  surface.  The  Turks 
used  it  for  some  purpose,  I  suppose, 
or  they  would  not  have  built  it.  The 
legend  has  it  that  it  was  called  at  one 
time  The  Bloody  Tower,  but  that 
may  have  been  only  a  manner  of 
speaking.  I  have  been  shipmate 
with  a  Turk  only  once  or  twice  in  my 
life,  and  so  far  as  I  know  them  they 
are  competent,  orderly,  well-bred 
people.     I    very    much    regret    that 

44 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

fate  has  made  us  enemies  in  this 
war. 

As  I  was  saying,  the  blue-and- 
white  Greek  standard  floats  from  the 
battlements  of  the  White  Tower. 
All  around  you  float  officers  of  the 
Greek  army  in  blue-and-silver  full 
uniforms.  They    look    slightly 

theatrical,  because  all  the  other 
armies  are  in  service  clothes.  The 
ends  of  their  silver-plated  scabbards 
are  muddy.  So  are  their  spurs. 
Many  of  them  are  handsome  in  a 
fashion-plate  way:  dead-white  skin, 
dead-black  moustaches,  long  legs, 
thin  noses,  dark  eyes,  empty  fore- 
heads. One  in  particular  attracts 
one's  attention.  He  is  wearing  blue- 
and-white  cocks'  feathers  in  his  hat, 
white  kid  gloves  on  his  hands,  and 
immense  Hessian  boots  with  silver 
spurs  on  his  feet.  His  sword  is 
across  his  knees  and  he  is  explaining 

45 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

something  with  great  energy  to  his 
companions. 

A  French  air-man,  who  has  skinned 
his  nose  (possibly  in  a  sudden 
descent)  and  who  wears  the  Military 
Cross,  sits  behind  a  glass  of  ver- 
mouth. Several  Russian  lieutenants, 
in  their  beautiful  green  tunics  and 
soft  leather  boots,  are  conversing 
with  a  French  major.  An  Italian 
captain  is  reading  a  book.  An  Eng- 
lish captain  is  talking  to  a  lady. 
Some  Serbian  officers  appear  to  be 
talking  to  themselves.  Not  one  of 
them  seems  to  have  anything  to  do. 
Perhaps  they  think  the  same  of  me. 
Let  us  take  the  car  back.  The  tall 
and  handsome  Greek  officers  cram 
into  one  poor  little  Ford  runabout 
and  rattle  off  up  the  road.  Let  us 
take  the  car.  A  Salonika  tram-car 
is  interesting,  believe  me. 

They  nearly  always  haul  a  second- 

46 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

class  trailer  behind  them.  We  go 
second  class.  It  is  a  very  small  car, 
and  it  is  very  full.  The  fare  is  a 
penny.  A  Greek  penny  is  a  nickel 
coin  with  a  hole  in  the  centre,  so  that 
it  looks  like  an  aluminium  washer. 
The  occupants  of  the  car  are  of  all 
ages.  Boys  and  girls  and  priests  are 
in  the  majority.  The  children  are 
going  to  school,  as  may  be  seen  by 
the  books  in  their  hands.  The  priests 
are  going — wherever  priests  go  in  the 
morning.  If  they  were  going  to  the 
barber's  it  would  do  them  no  harm. 
I  admit  that  their  flowing  black 
gowns  and  extraordinary  top  hats  are 
picturesque;  but  why  should  the  pic- 
turesque persist  in  being  insanitary? 
I  like  the  children  better.  They 
are  clean  and  wholesome.  Most  of 
them,  I  observe,  have  ticket-books, 
from  which  the  conductor  removes  a 
coupon.     This   arrangement,   I   sus- 

47 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

pect,  is  favoured  by  the  parents,  be- 
cause the  children  might  save  the  fare 
and  go  to  the  pictures  instead.    The 
car  passes  the  doors  of  several  cinema 
theatres,  and  the  youngsters  babble 
excitedly  as  they  discuss  the  vivid 
posters   that   are   stuck   up   outside. 
One  lad  of  twelve  is  deep   in   a 
penny    dreadful.     I    look    over    his 
shoulder  and  wish  I  could  decipher 
the  story.     He  wears  a  low-necked 
suit  with  sailor  collar  and  French  tie, 
blue  corduroy  shorts,  patent-leather 
button    boots,   and    silk  socks.     His 
brown    legs    are    bare.     The    whole 
look   of  him   is   Byronic,   save   that 
instead  of  a  slouch  hat  he  wears  a 
peaked  naval  cap  on  one  side  of  a 
dark   head.     Byronic,    too,    are    the 
illustrations  to  his  dreadful.     A  girl  is 
tied  to  a  railway  line  and  two  des- 
peradoes   struggle   with   daggers.     I 
peep  farther  over  his  shoulder.     He 
48 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

is  so  absorbed  in  the  story  that  he 
notices  nothing.  I  muse  upon  his 
future.     What  will  he  be,  when  he  j 

grows  up?     Is  his  father  a  Venizelist?  j 

Of  what  race  is  he?     How  does  this  1; 

Grecian  sprig,  who  reads  penny 
dreadfuls  in  an  electric  tram-car, 
regard  us  Britishers  who  have  come 
over  the  sea,  like  the  Romans  and  .  i 

Normans  and  Franks  of  old,  to  leave 
our  bones  on  the  Balkan  ranges  ?  Out 
in  the  Gulf  ride  his  country's  war- 
ships with  a  foreign  flag  on  their 
gaffs.  Does  he  care?  I  doubt  it.  He 
turns  over  the  page  without  looking 
up. 

But  of  a  sudden  there  is  a  blare  of 
martial  music.  The  car  has  stopped. 
We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  procession. 
Let  us  get  out.     We  reach  the  side-  P 

walk  with  a  run  and  find  the  pro- 
cession is  wheeling  round  the  corner, 
just  beyond,  into  the  Place,  and  up 

49 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Venizelos  Street.  It  is  the  new 
Greek  Nationalist  Army — new  uni- 
forms, new  rifles,  new  mountain 
batteries,  new  officers — all  very  new. 
They  march  in  fifties,  and  cries  of 
"Venizelos!"  "Viva'/*  and  other  less 
articulate  noises  mingle  with  much 
clapping  of  hands  and  clinking  of 
scabbards.  Our  glorious  friend  with 
the  cocks*  feathers  and  white  kid 
gloves  is  in  all  his  glory  now,  directing 
the  procession.  He  salutes  continu- 
ally. After  the  soldiers  come  motor- 
cars with  generals  and  admirals. 
Some  of  the  generals  are,  in  the 
words  of  the  penny  novelette,  a 
blaze  of  decorations.  No  mortal 
man  could  live  long  enough  or  have 
valour  enough  to  earn  all  the  medals 
these  gentlemen  wear  in  tiers  on 
their  padded  bosoms.  However, 
everybody  claps,  so  I  clap,  too. 
They  are  all  going  to  the  front  to- 

50 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

morrow,  they  say,  so  let  us  bury 
criticism.  So  they  pass.  I  stand 
near  a  large-sized  sergeant-major  of 
the  R.  F.  A.  and  I  observe  a  peculiar 
expression  of  astonishment  on  his 
bronzed  face  as  he  salutes.  If  I 
read  it  aright  he  is  thinking,  "Well, 
Fm  blowed!     What  a  circus!" 

After  the  uniforms  come  the 
civilian  members  of  the  new  Greek 
Government.  There  is  a  good  deal 
of  the  theatrical  star  about  their 
appearance,  due,  I  suppose,  to  the 
silk  hats  and  opera  cloaks  and  lav- 
ender gloves  they  affect.  They  wear 
their  hair  rather  longer  than  our 
pohticians,  too.  My  sergeant-major 
salutes,  but  I  catch  his  eye.  He 
throws  up  his  chin  and  grins,  as 
though  to  say,  ''I'm  doin*  this  by 
orders,  so  don't  blame  me." 

Presently  the  motor-cars  change  to 
pair-horse    carriages.  Some    are 

51 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

clapped,  some  are  hissed  by  the 
crowd  on  sidewalk  and  balcony. 
The  pair-horse  carriages  change  to 
one-horse  and  the  sergeant-major 
ceases  to  salute.  Several  political 
gentlemen  in  one-horse  vehicles  lift 
their  silk  hats.  As  no  one  claps  they 
put  them  on  again,  and  sit  back  with 
expressions  of  rigid  ill  temper  on 
their  faces. 

One  does  not  believe  in  this  sort  of 
thing  for  a  moment.  It  is  all  too 
unreal.  The  superficial  reason  for 
this  doubt  in  a  spectator's  mind  is 
that  the  public  never  knows  what  is 
actually  going  on.  One  of  the  great 
advantages  of  war,  they  tell  us,  is 
that  it  clears  the  air.  We  learn  who 
are  our  real  enemies  and  who  are  our 
real  friends.  War  is  that  something, 
not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righte- 
ousness. War  abolishes  sham  and 
pretense. 

52 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

But  there  is  another  reason.  You 
cannot  impose  liberty  upon  a  people 
any  more  than  you  can  make  them 
good  by  legislation.  Rousseau,  whose 
prescience  in  this  matter  is  almost  un- 
canny, asserts  this.  "  Every  people," 
he  says,  "to  which  its  situation  gives 
no  choice  save  that  between  com- 
merce and  war,  is  weak  in  itself:  it 
depends  on  its  neighbours,  and  on 
circumstances;  its  existence  can  never 
be  more  than  short  and  uncertain." 
And  he  quotes  with  approval  this 
maxim:  "Liberty  may  be  gained,  but 
it  can  never  be  recovered." 

Well,  they  are  gone,  and  General 
Sarrail,  who  has  been  standing  on 
Venizelos  Steps  with  Colonel  Christo- 
doulos,  shakes  hands  with  that  gentle- 
man and  hurries  back  to  his  office.  I 
remark  as  he  passes  that  he  carries  no 
sword  and  wears  no  decorations  what- 
ever. 


i" 


53 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

It  is  now  eleven  o'clock  and  I  de- 
cide on  a  walk  up  Venizelos  Street 
before  going  aboard. 

Venizelos  Street  is  the  Bond  Street 
and  Fifth  Avenue  of  Salonika.  All 
the  great  stores  of  the  city  are  here. 
I  don't  suppose  an  American  or  a 
Londoner  would  call  them  great 
stores.  They  are  no  counterparts  of 
Wanamaker's  or  Harrods',  of  Green- 
hut  Cooper's  or  Whiteley's.  But  they 
are  great  in  comparison  with  the 
aboriginal  hole  in  the  wall  which  the 
oriental  calls  a  shop.  Here  in  Venize- 
los Street,  you  can  buy  everything 
you  want  and  many  hundreds  of 
things  you  don't.  There  is  a  good 
bookshop,  if  you  read  French.  Dutch 
and  American  goods  predominate  at 
present.  There  is  a  bank  with 
formidable  sentries  marching  to  and 
fro,  possibly  to  intimidate  with- 
drawals.      There    is    a    tailor    who 

54 


^r 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

will  undertake  every  conceivable  uni- 
form, and  make  them  all  utterly 
wrong. 

We  pass  all  these  and  come  to 
smaller  establishments — the  inevit- 
able postcard  and  cigarette  shops, 
shops  with  figs  hung  in  festoons  and 
vegetable  marrows  blocking  the  tiny 
entrance.  At  length  we  cross  Jean 
Tsimiski  Street,  which  is  the  Fleet 
Street  of  Salonika.  Here  are  forged 
the  thunderbolts  of  the  press.  Here, 
high  up  in  a  yellow  barrack,  is  con- 
ceived and  executed  the  daily  issue 
of  the  Balkan  News^  the  only  paper 
of  its  kind.  If  you  are  a  poet,  go 
upstairs  and  see  the  editor.  So  long 
as  you  do  not  mention  Mount  Olym- 
pos  or  the  Red  Light  District,  he 
will  be  glad  to  publish  your  works 
in  daily  instalments. 

I  am  no  poet,  so  Jean  Tsimiski 
Street  is  passed  and  we  enter  the 

SS 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

covered  bazaar.  Here  we  are  in  the 
Orient.  Here  are  no  fixed  prices,  but 
a  battle  royal  over  every  deal.  Here 
the  merchant  stands  outside  and 
uses  all  the  eloquence  of  which  he  is 
capable  to  lure  you  into  his  tiny  fast- 
ness. If  he  happens  to  be  inside  and 
he  sees  your  eye  flicker  ever  so 
slightly  toward  his  wares,  he  is  out  in 
a  flash  and  implores  you  to  inspect 
his  stock.  Sooner  or  later  you  will 
fall.  You  see  some  gimcrack  or 
other  which  takes  your  fancy.  You 
are  dragged  within.  You  ask  the 
price.  Having  appraised  your  posi- 
tion in  life,  he  names  a  figure,  about 
two  hundred  per  cent,  above  what  he 
expects.  You  laugh  in  his  face  and 
walk  out.  He  pursues  you,  abating 
a  hundred  per  cent.  You  walk  on, 
and  he  offers  it  on  your  own  terms. 
You  return  and  agree  to  take  it. 
Then,  instead  of  concluding  the  deal, 

56 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

this  exasperating  person  will  prob- 
ably show  you  something  else  and 
offer  to  throw  it  in  for  another  ten 
francs ! 

i\nd    it    is    all    rubbish.     Turkish 
slippers  and  fezzes  made  in  Austria, 
daggers  made  in  Germany,  Japanese 
silks   and   fans,   black   amber   orna- 
ments advertised  as  from  Erzerum, 
but  probably  from  Germany,  ancient 
coins  and  vases,  ikons,  and  charms — 
all  the  junk  of  the  foolish  traveller,  is 
here.     I  observe  smart  British  nurses 
buying  souvenirs  for  friends  in  Bal- 
ham   and   Birmingham,   smart   sub- 
alterns     purchasing     cigarette-cases 
and  walking-stick  handles,   daggers, 
and  silly  old  Turkish  pistols.     But 
after  all,  they  are  young,  and  quite 
probably  they  do  not  know  the  East. 
I  recall  my  first  trip  to  the  Orient 
in    a    tramp    steamer,  when   I,   too, 
bought: 

57 


i 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Walkin'  sticks  o'  carved  bamboo,  an'  blow- 
fish  stuffed  an'  dried; 

Fillin'  my  bunk  wi'  rubbishry  the  Chief  put 
over-side. 

After  all,  this  is  the  time  of  their 
lives,  these  foolish  young  people  with 
their  curios  and  their  wrist-watches 
and  the  stars  on  their  shoulders  and 
in  their  eyes. 

So,  walking  through  the  bazaar, 
one  sees  another  phase  of  the  only 
thing  worth  looking  at — humanity. 
One  sees  the  Httle  Turkish  boy  being 
fitted  with  a  suit  in  an  outfitter's,  or 
the  little  Turkish  maiden  buying  a 
comb.  One  meets  the  Jewishy  tout, 
who  speaks  all  languages — "Oh,  yes. 
Engleesh,  all  right,  Johnny*';  the 
fatuous  humbug!  One  sees  French 
soldiers  buying  buttons  and  needles 
and  thread;  the  canny  creatures! 
One  sees  solemn  bearded  Israelites, 
in  flowing  gabardines,  stalking  to  and 

58 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

fro,  conversing,  strangely  enough,  in 
Spanish.  One  sees  these  things  or 
one  does  not,  according  to  one's 
temperament  and  training.  Per- 
sonally, I  would  like  to  see  more  of 
them.  I  feel  there  is  something  in 
this  Babel  for  me,  if  I  could  but  stay 
and  catch  the  subtle  cosmopoHtan 
spirit  of  it.  But  that  may  not  be. 
It  is  time  to  return.      I  go  on  at  two! 


59 


VI 

To  DEPICT  a  monotony  is  a 
difficult  and  precarious  art, 
and  needs  for  its  justification 
a  grand  ulterior  aim.  Such  an  aim 
would  be  out  of  place  in  these  simple 
papers.  I  merely  wish  to  make  the 
reader  see,  as  well  as  I  can,  how  the 
glory  of  war  throws  a  certain  sombre 
shadow  over  the  lives  of  some  ob- 
scure seafarers — a  shadow  in  which 
little  save  the  unregarded  vir- 
tues of  patience  and  vigilance  can 
grow. 

But  even  in  such  conditions  there 

are  gleams  in   the  dark.     Even   to 

phlegmatic  Britishers  the  astonishing 

phantasmagoria  of  Balkan  life  pre- 

60 


i^sf.as-'ir^^s^j^MJs^iwesni 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

sents   occasional  phases   of  comedy 
and  interest.     As  for  example: 

Before  going  aboard  I  decide  to 
have  another  drink.  At  first  I  think 
of  going  into  Floca's.  Floca's  is  the 
Ritz-Carlton  of  Salonika;  but  it  is 
not  Salonika.  It  is  merely  a  small 
replica  of  Walker's  at  Alexandria,  the 
Eastern  Exchange  at  Port  Said,  the 
Verdi  at  Genoa,  or  Florian's  at 
Venice.  The  British  officer  has  pop- 
ularized Floca's,  and  so  has  made 
Floca,  if  such  a  person  exist,  rich. 
The  uniforms  of  five  nations  mingle 
at  the  marble-topped  tables.  It  is 
the  only  place  where  you  can  get  tea 
in  a  city  which  never  drinks  tea. 
Here  the  nurses  and  the  subalterns 
can  eat  chocolate  eclairs  and  Sally 
Lunns  under  the  very  noses  of 
brigadiers.  Floca's  reeks  of  wealth 
and  Occidental  refinement.  I  stand 
in  the  Place  de  la  Liberte  and  con- 
6i 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

template  the  glittering  throng  within 
the  great  doors.  And  I  turn  away. 
I  decide  against  Floca^s.  I  know  a 
less  reputable  place  where  it  will  be 
quiet,  and  where  the  beer  is  a  penny 
a  litre  cheaper.     Allons  done. 

It  is  round  the  corner,  on  the  sea 
front,  between  the  market  and  an 
unfortunate  alley  where  mendicants 
eat  fish  with  their  fingers  and  quarrel 
over  stray  lepta.  It  is  what  is  known 
as  a  cafe-chantant^  a,  large  lofty  barn 
of  a  room,  with  a  plush  balcony  for 
customers,  a  small  stage,  and  a 
piano.  This  sort  of  establishment 
does  its  profitable  business  at  night, 
when  I  am  in  bed.  Nevertheless,  I 
imagine  that  it  can  never  be  more 
amusing  than  when  I  see  it,  its  harsh 
decrepitude  revealed  in  the  clear 
dancing  sunlight  reflected  from  the 
sea,  and  the  gloom  of  its  corners 
alive  with  bizarre  forms. 
62 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

I  order  my  beer  from  a  Greek 
gentleman  who  reluctantly  leaves  a 
political  conversation  to  attend  to 
me.  Although  I  am  almost  the  only 
customer,  there  are  quite  a  dozen 
people  engaged  round  the  piano  and 
in  front  of  a  camera.  For  this  is 
rehearsal- time  for  the  artists  who 
grace  the  stage  in  the  evening.  A 
weary  pianist  in  Greek  khaki  strums 
the  air  of  a  song,  and  a  rouged  and 
jewelled  lady  leans  over  him,  singing 
and  beating  time  with  her  hands  and 
feet.  Another  young  lady  sits  near 
me,  her  feet  on  the  table  in  front  of 
her,  showing  much  stocking,  hum- 
ming a  song,  and  pretending  to  study 
the  sheet  of  music  she  holds  before 
her.  Her  hat  is  on  one  side.  So, 
for  that  matter,  is  her  nose.  Sud- 
denly she  rises  and  begins  to  walk 
aimlessly  among  the  tables,  still 
humming  her  song.     I  don't  think  it 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

is  a  very  good  song,  to  judge  by  the 
hum.  Suddenly  she  emits  a  squall, 
which  is  answered  by  another  squall 
behind  the  curtains  of  the  little  stage, 
and  a  bony  female,  in  green  silk  and 
spangles,  thrusts  her  frizzled  head 
and  stringy  neck  through  the  open- 
ing. They  talk,  and  when  each  has 
eHcited  from  the  other  a  wild  gust  of 
laughter,  the  spangled  one  vanishes, 
only  to  appear  immediately  at  the 
side. 

My  attention  is  now  attracted  to  a 
dark  corner  where  strangely  garbed 
forms  are  writhing  in  an  apparently 
interminable  embrace.  The  photog- 
rapher, an  itinerant  of  the  streets, 
fusses  methodically  with  his  pre- 
historic camera.  Several  Jewesses, 
their  eyes  flashing  on  either  side  of 
large  powdered  noses,  sit  round, 
drinking  vermouth  and  gin,  and 
watching  the  dim  performance  with 
64 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

tolerant  smiles.  At  length,  by  mov- 
ing several  tables  nearer,  I  can  make 
out  a  couple  of  acrobats  engaged  in 
tying  themselves  into  a  sort  of  hu- 
man clove-hitch.  They  seem  to  me 
to  be  attempting  the  impossible. 
Perhaps  they  are.  Perhaps  they  are 
idealists,  like  the  brothers  in  the 
Goncourts'  novel,  ''Les  Freres  Zem- 
ganno.*'  I  am,  in  this  matter,  par 
excellence  a  detached  spectator.  One 
is  short  and  thick,  the  other  slim  and 
athletic.  I  see  the  face  of  the  latter 
peering  up  from  between  the  legs  of 
his  colleague — a  thin,  distorted  face, 
with  strained,  unseeing,  yet  strangely 
watchful-looking  eyes,  the  cheeks 
smeared  with  rivulets  of  perspiration, 
the  brow  damp  and  pallid.  Suddenly 
they  collapse  and  fall  apart.  Another 
failure.  They  hold  their  wrists,  re- 
garding each  other  with  expressions 
of  pain  and  malevolence.     The  pho- 

65 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

tographer  continues  to  potter  about, 
ignoring  their  futile  antics  until  he  is 
given  the  word. 

They  elect  to  take  a  breathing 
spell,  and  the  spangled  lady  assumes 
her  position  on  the  carpet,  keeping 
up  all  the  while  a  torrent  of  conversa- 
tion with  the  student  of  song,  who  is 
now  seated  on  a  table  near  by.  An- 
other figure  emerges  from  the  wings 
of  the  stage,  a  dreadful  travesty  of  a 
hero,  a  hero  with  bandy  legs,  yellow 
whiskers,  and  a  false  nose  of  heroic 
dimensions.  He  is  dressed  in  yellow 
and  red.  He  and  the  spangled  lady 
strike  a  love-attitude,  he  registering 
dignity,  she  hopeless  passion.  The 
photographer  bestirs  himself,  dives 
under  his  black  cloth,  and  waves  a 
mesmerizing  hand  back  and  forth,  to 
lend  emphasis  to  his  own  muffled 
commands.  With  an  abrupt  gesture 
he  snatches  the  cap  from  the  lens, 
66 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

beats  time  in  the  air  slowly — one, 
two,  three — claps  it  on  again,  and 
the  group  smile  foolishly  at  each 
other. 

It  is  amusing,  yet  I  see  a  good  deal 
of  pathos  in  these  poor  strolling 
players.  They  are  doing  their  best. 
No  doubt,  in  the  evening,  when  the 
tables  are  thronged,  and  the  music 
strives  with  the  babel  of  voices  and 
the  clink  of  glass,  they  have  their 
reward. 

I  confess,  however,  to  a  sporting 
interest  in  the  acrobats  who  are  un- 
able to  attain  the  position  in  which 
they  desire  to  be  photographed.  I 
order  a  fresh  beer.  Several  shoe- 
blacks, paper-boys,  peanut-vendors, 
and  itinerant  chocolate-merchants 
have  come  in,  and  regard  me  with 
chastened  expectancy.  I  am  persona 
non  grata  to  these  infernal  pests  of 
the  Levant.  By  instinct,  when  I  turn 

67 


TPT" 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

to  look  at  them,  they  recognize  my 
antipathy.  Each  in  his  turn  exam- 
ines my  expression  with  shrewd  skill, 
and  fades  away  into  the  dazzling 
clangour  of  the  street.  At  length  our 
protagonists,  emerging  from  a  thicket 
of  stacked  chairs  where  they  have 
been  secluded  during  the  last  scene, 
take  their  stand  once  more  upon  the 
dingy  carpet  and  look  around  with 
a  moritiiri-te-salutamus  expression. 
They  grasp  hands.  The  tall  one  pulls 
sharply.  The  short  one  makes  a 
miraculous  ascent  into  the  air.  For 
an  instant  his  curved  body  and  bent 
limbs  are  poised  in  unstable  equilib- 
rium, and  one  might  imagine  him  but 
that  moment  descended  from  above. 
For  me  he  is  foreshortened.  I  see 
him  as  one  sees  the  angel  who  is  hurl- 
ing the  thunderbolt  in  Tintoretto's 
never-to-be-forgotten  masterpiece. 
The  piano  is  hushed.  Now  he  is 
68 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 


that    they    have 
to    see    human 


poised  on  the  other's  hands,  on  one 
hand.  Enfiyjl  In  tense  silence  the 
photographer  removes  his  lens-cap; 
there  is  a  quiver  of  the  outflung  hand 
and  the  tall  athlete  flutters  his  eye- 
lids as  he  looks  up  with  awful  anxiety 
— poufl  It  is  finished,  and  we  all 
breathe  again  as  the  short  athlete 
comes  down  with  a  jump.  I  feel 
very  glad  indeed 
succeeded.  I  like 
beings  succeed. 

Over  at  the  piano,  however,  I  can 
detect  nothing  that  resembles 
success.  The  peripatetic  student  of 
song  and  the  musical  reservist  are  not 
having  a  very  happy  time.  She  has 
not  even  a  vaudeville  voice.  From 
the  manner  in  which  the  accompanist 
slaps  the  music  and  snarls  over  his 
shoulder  at  her,  I  gather  that  she  has 
not  yet  mastered  the  notes.  Every 
minute  or  so  she  turns  her  back  on 
69 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

him  and  feigns  a  passionate  with- 
drawal. He,  poor  wight,  with  a 
Balkan  winter  in  the  trenches  in 
front  of  him,  pays  not  the  slightest 
attention  to  her  tantrums.  Then, 
after  a  perfectly  furious  altercation, 
they  find  a  basis  of  agreement.  She 
is  to  go  on  the  stage  and  sing  the  song 
without  words.  Bon  I  She  skips  up, 
showing  a  great  deal  of  stocking  as 
she  adjusts  her  garters  and  pulls  down 
her  cheap  little  jacket.  But  it  ap- 
pears that  she  cannot  sing  the  song, 
even  without  words.     She  begins: 

La-la,  la-la  la-la-h-lah! 
La-la 


and  stops,  looking  at  me,  of  all 
people,  with  profound  suspicion,  as 
though  I  had  stolen  the  rest  of  her  lahs. 
A  Jewess  interjects  a  sentence,  and 
both  the  accompanist  and  the  young 
lady,  to  my  astonishment,  shriek  with 
70 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

laughter.  I  laugh,  too.  It  is  in- 
fectious if  bewildering.  I  realize  how 
hopeless  it  would  be  for  me  to  try  to 
comprehend  their  intricate  psychol- 
ogy. I  am  a  mere  spectator  from  an 
alien  planet,  watching  for  a  brief  in- 
stant the  antics  of  inexplicable  sha- 
dows on  a  screen.  I  drink  my  beer 
and  drift  out  into  the  noise  and 
dazzle.     I  must  go  aboard. 

I  skip  across  the  road,  dodging  a 
trolley-car,  an  ambulance  wagon,  a 
donkey  with  silver-plated  harness 
and  a  raw  red  chasm  on  his  rump,  a 
mad  boy  on  a  pink  bicycle,  and  a 
cart  drawn  by  two  enormous  oxen, 
their  heads  bowed  beneath  a  mas- 
sive yoke.  I  gain  the  sea  wall  and 
follow  it  until  I  reach  the  kiosks  that 
flank  the  dirty  marble  steps  of  the 
Venizelos  landing.  A  boy  in  a  boat 
immediately  waves  his  arms  and 
beckons  to  me  as  if  I  w^ere  the  one 

71 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

person  in  Salonika  who  could  rescue 
him  from  life-long  indigence.  A  lus- 
troSy  the  cynical  name  given  to  the 
home-grown  shoe-shine  boy,  flings 
himself  at  my  feet  and  endeavours 
gently  to  lift  one  of  them  to  his  box. 
I  resist  this  infamous  proposal.  I 
ignore  the  demented  youth  in  the 
boat.  I  walkout  on  the  marble  jetty 
and  look  calmly  about  for  our  own 
dinghy.  It  occasionally  happens 
that  I  am  in  time  to  join  the  captain 
as  he  returns.  I  do  not  think  that 
he  likes  the  idea  very  much,  but  he 
makes  no  audible  protest  when  an 
engineer  sits  beside  him.  However, 
there  is  no  sign  of  either  skipper  or 
dinghy,  so  I  turn  again  to  the  youth  in 
the  boat.  He  rows  hastily  to  the 
steps,  and  motions  me  to  get  in  and 
recline  on  his  scarlet  cushions.  But 
I  am  not  to  be  cozened.  I  demand  a 
tariflF.  According  to  the  guide-book 
72 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

he  may  charge  me  one  drachma 
(about  twenty  cents)  for  a  trip,  with- 
out luggage,  to  the  outer  harbour.  I 
am  prepared  to  give  two,  since  it  is 
war-time  and  bread  is  dear.  We 
begin  to  haggle.  It  is  a  phase  of 
human  folly  very  distasteful  to  an 
EngHshman,  this  stupid  enthrone- 
ment of  cunning  and  knavish  bluff  in 
the  forefront  of  all  levantine  trans- 
actions. The  xA.nglo-Saxon  is  torn 
with  the  conflict  of  disparate  desires. 
He  wishes  to  show  his  unutterable 
scorn  for  the  whole  performance  by 
flinging  a  triple  fare  in  the  huck- 
ster's face,  and  he  has  also  a  profound 
moral  conviction  that  he  ought  "on 
principle"  to  pay  the  exact  legal  de- 
mand. I  have  done  both.  There 
is  a  certain  amount  of  pleasure  in 
each.  I  weigh  their  merits  as  I 
stand  on  Venizelos  Steps  and  haggle 
with  the  boatman.     Thus: 

73 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Boatman, — Boat!  Boat!  You 
want  boat?     All  right. 

Fare. — ^How    much    to    beef-ship? 

Boatman. — ^T'ree  shillin',  yes.  You 
want  boat! 

Fare, — Yes,  I  want  a  boat,  but 
only  for  hire  to  go  to  the  beef-ship. 
How  much  ? 

Boatman, — T'ree  shillin'. 

Fare, — ^Too  much. 

[He  turns  away  and  fills  his  pipe 
with  great  care^  and^  sitting  on  the 
marble  parapet^  contemplates  the  har- 
bour. This  is  very  disconcerting  to  the 
Boatman,  He  ties  up  and  steps 
ashore^  to  follow  the  matter  up.  He 
approaches  the  Fare^  who  smokes 
stolidly,] 

Boatman, — You  want  boat? 

Fare. — Ah!  How  much  to  the 
beef-ship? 

Boatman, — How  mooch?  T*ree 
shillin'. 

74 


.■:-«l-  l".»*r»*<a"ii»«».-*-s 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Fare, — No.     Two  francs. 

Boatman, — Come  on.  T'ree  francs, 
eh?     Yaas. 

Fare  [stolidly], — I  will  give  you  two 
francs. 

Boatman, — Yaas.  All    raight. 

'Alf-a-crown,  eh? 

Fare, — ^Half-a-crown  is  three 
francs.     I  will  give  you  two. 

Boatman, — Two  shillin*? 

Fare  [patiently], — No.  You  see, 
it's  this  way:  if  you  take  me  to  the 
beef-ship,  I  will  give  you  two  francs. 
Do  you  get  that  right?  Two!  One 
and  one.     Two. 

Boatman. — All  raight.  Come  on. 
[He  goes  down  the  steps,] 

Fare, — You  understand  then:  two 
francs.     No  more. 

Boatman  [blankly], — No  more? 

Fare  [blandly], — No  more.  What 
did  you  think  ? 

Boatman, — T'ree  shillin'. 

75 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Fare  [getting  into  the  boat  and  taking 
the  tiller  lines], — I  shouldn't  be  sur- 
prised if  some  Englishman  killed  you 
for  saying  "three  shillings/' my  friend. 

If  he  were  not  so  dirty  he  would  be 
a  nice-looking  lad  of  the  1917  class. 
He  is  dressed  in  the  usual  composite 
rags  of  the  Greek  proletariat,  part 
khaki,  part  European,  part  Turkish. 
He  does  not  look  as  if  he  belonged  to 
a  conquering  race.  Neither,  I  sup- 
pose, do  I;  but  the  cases  are  not 
similar.  My  young  boatman  does 
not  regard  Janina  as  I  regard  the 
capture  of  Quebec,  for  example. 
Goodness  only  knows  what  he  does 
regard,  or  how.  He  may  be  one  of 
the  conquered  race.  I  ask  him  with 
large  gestures  to  illustrate  my  mean- 
ing, if  he  is  going  to  enlist,  soldier 
— fight — gun — bang! — beat  Bulgar 
— eh?    He  is  puzzled,  and  perseveres 

76 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

with  his  oars.  I  reflect  that  he  may 
be  an  anti-Venizelist.  Presently,  as 
we  clear  the  inside  shipping,  he  asks, 
as  every  Greek  boatman  asks: 
"When  your  ship  go  away,  eh?'' 
And  I  tell  him  a  deliberate,  cold- 
blooded lie!  We  do  not  inform 
Greek  boatmen  when  our  ships  are 
going  away. 

About  this  time  my  attention  is 
held  by  the  appearance  of  the  sky. 
It  is  a  sky  I  have  learned  to  regard 
with  a  certain  amount  of  interest. 
As  my  young  boatman  steps  his 
mast  and  hoists  his  sail,  I  observe, 
high  above  the  rolHng  banks  and 
islets  of  cumulous  vapour  in  the 
bowl  of  the  Gulf,  a  film  of  trans- 
parent dapple-gray  clouds  assemb- 
ling. The  whole  of  the  upper  air 
is  mottled  with  their  confusing  tex- 
ture. A  delightful  sky  in  peace- 
times,  a   sky   veiling   the    sun    and 

77 


i 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

making  high  noon  agreeable.  A  sky 
to  watch  through  the  open  window  in 
springtime.  A  sky  to  paint,  with  a 
foreground  of  yellow  crocuses  and 
green  grass  and  brown  girls.  A  sky 
to  look  up  at,  from  where  one  lies  on 
the  heather,  and  dream  a  boy's 
strange  and  delicate  dreams. 

One  of  the  advantages  of  war  is  the 
deeper  and  more  intense  interpreta- 
tion one  learns  to  give  to  the  common 
phenomena.  This  gay,  romantic  sky 
used  to  be  nothing  more  than  gay  and 
romantic.  Now  I  watch  it  with  an 
experienced  apprehension.  And  as 
I  pass  a  man-of-war,  I  observe  that 
the  anti-aircraft  crew  are  at  drill. 
There  is  something  curiously  affec- 
tionate in  the  aspect  of  an  anti- 
aircraft crew  at  work.  The  gunner 
is  seated  and  his  assistants  are  all 
grouped  about  him,  heads  together, 
as  though  whispering  to  each  other 

78 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

the    most    delightful    secrets.     Per- 
haps they  are. 

We  come  leisurely  alongside. 
Standing  on  the  grating  at  the  foot  of 
the  accommodation  ladder,  I  pay  my 
young  friend  his  two  francs  with  a 
bonus  of  twopence.  For  a  single 
moment  he  stands,  from  life-long 
habit,  in  an  attitude  eloquent  of 
despair.  I  go  up  the  ladder,  smihng 
blandly  at  his  outflung  hands  and 
upraised  indignant  eyes.  Then  he 
recovers  himself,  makes  a  gesture 
consigning  the  whole  race  of  English- 
men to  perdition,  pockets  the  money, 
and  rows  away.  Once  more  I  am  on 
board,  and  it  is  nearly  two  o'clock. 


79 


VII 

IT  SHOULD  never  be  forgotten, 
in  a  review  of  the  seafaring  life, 
that  these  casual  and  irrelevant 
encounters  with  the  offscourings  of 
hybrid  races,  though  priceless  to  the 
philosopher  and  the  artist,  are  of  no 
human  value  to  the  sailor  at  all. 
The  jaded  landsman  imagines  that 
we  seamen  "see  the  world'*  and  view 
"mankind  from  China  to  Peru/'  He 
romantically  conceives  us  extracting 
the  fine  essences  from  the  crude 
masses  of  humanity  with  whom  we 
are  thrown  in  contact  in  the  seething 
ports  of  the  Orient.  He  figures  us  ec- 
statically savouring  the  "unchanging 
East"  and  beholding  "strange  lands 
80 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

from  under  the  arched  white  sails  of 
ships/*  It  must  be  confessed  that 
popular  fiction  confirms  these  il- 
lusions. We  who  work  in  ships  are 
supposed  to  be  prototypes  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  "Tramp  Royal'' — a  flatter- 
ing but  untrue  assumption. 

But  while  an  intelligent  person  can 
see  readily  that,  to  the  unimagina- 
tive seafarer,  this  continual  pro- 
cession of  detached  images  will  have 
no  positive  significance,  very  few 
observers  realize  how  such  an  en- 
vironment tends  also  to  indurate  the 
soul.  Yet  so  it  is.  In  our  rough, 
homely  way,  we  are  fatigued  with 
distinctions,  and  reduce  the  Un- 
known to  common  denominators. 
We  call  Hindoos  "  coolies,"  Chinamen 
"Chinks,"  Americans  "Yanks,"  Span- 
iards"Dagoes,"Italians"Spaghettis," 
and  we  let  it  go  at  that.  We  are 
majestically  incurious  about  them 
8i 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

all.  There  is  no  British  type  so 
narrow,  so  dogmatic,  so  ignorant,  so 
impervious  to  criticism,  so  parochial 
in  its  outlook,  as  the  seafaring  man  or 
officer.  You  would  imagine,  from 
our  ideas,  that  we  had  remained  all 
our  days  in  our  home  towns.  Indeed 
most  of  us  have.  Our  real  life  beats 
in  the  little  houses  in  Penarth, 
Swansea,  Seaforth,  White  Inch,  or 
South  Shields.  We  have  very  little 
passion  for  the  bizarre.  We  become 
callous  to  the  impact  of  the  stray 
alien,  and  feed  our  narrow  hearts 
with  wistful  visions  of  an  idealized 
suburban  existence. 

Going  on  at  two  is  quite  a  different 
thing  from  the  ghastly  affair  of  the 
small  hours.  Each  period  of  the  day 
has  its  own  subtle  quality,  which  no 
arbitrary  rearrangement  of  our  own 
hours  of  work  and  rest  can  destroy. 
And  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  is  a 
82 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

time  of  disillusion,  a  time  when  a 
man  has  neither  great  faith  nor  pro- 
found convictions.  The  morning  is 
gone,  the  evening  too  far  away. 
Even  tea-time  seems  at  an  immense 
and  tragic  distance.  It  is  the  slack- 
water  period  of  the  day.  And  it  is 
the  period  when  a  man  may  perhaps 
experience,  in  the  space  of  a  flash,  a 
peculiar  sensation  of  being  an  im- 
postor! It  is,  I  suppose,  in  such 
moments  that  generals,  commanders, 
chief  engineers,  and  the  like  jump 
overboard.  It  is  a  sensation  extraor- 
dinarily vivid  and  brief.  No  ex- 
ternal evidence  is  of  any  avail  to 
neutralize  its  dire  and  dreadful  om- 
niscience. No  personal  written 
record,  no  esteem  of  lifelong  friends, 
no  permanent  and  visible  accomplish- 
ment can  shield  the  sensitive  human 
soul,  thus  suddenly  stripped  bare  by 
some    devilish    cantrip    of   its    own 

83 


i 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

mechanism.      One    feels     a     hollow 
sham. 

And  the  ship,  at  this  hour,  is 
strangely  deserted.  Those  who  have 
work  are  gone  to  it,  those  who  are 
off  duty  are  resting  after  a  hot  lunch. 
The  day's  ration  of  meat  is  gone;  the 
soldiers  are  on  an  upper  deck,  out  of 
sight.  Thomas,  stretched  to  an  in- 
credible length  on  the  deck  steam- 
guard,  snoozes  in  gross  comfort. 
Ibrahim-el-Din,  an  Arab  coal-passer, 
is  smoking  a  meditative  cigarette  by 
the  after-rail.  The  faded  Irishman 
is  perambulating  in  his  stiff  way 
round  the  machine,  and  I  take  charge 
for  another  six  hours.  A  Greek 
sailor,  no  doubt  a  Venizelist,  is 
painting  a  bulkhead  in  an  amateur 
fashion.  As  I  look  through  one  of 
the  after-window  scuttles  I  observe 
our  agnostic  Second  Officer  drift  past. 
He  is  probably  going  to  resume  his 
84 


•  T  :nK.-»^  —  «iJ>-^  1 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

erotic  novel,  a  species  of  fiction  for 
which  he  has  a  strange  passion. 

For  an  hour  or  so  I  look  out  of  my 
machine-room  window  upon  an  un- 
tidy after-deck,  and  reflect  upon  the 
vicissitudes  of  War.  Visible  through 
the  crystalline  atmosphere,  Salonika, 
floored  with  a  jade-green  sea  and 
domed  with  dappled  azure,  resembles 
the  painted  curtain  of  some  titanic 
theatre.  It  is  in  fact  one  of  those 
monstrous  "theatres  of  war'*  which 
are  now  giving  a  continuous  per- 
formance to  the  whole  world.  But 
for  us  on  transports  that  painted 
curtain  is  never  lifted.  We  see  noth- 
ing of  the  performance.  We  are 
mere  stage  carpenters,  or  caterers,  or 
perhaps  only  stray  freight  wagons 
which  bring  some  homely  necessary 
material  to  the  grand  display. 

Such  are  my  thoughts,  more  or 
less,  when  I  catch  sight  suddenly  of 

85 


i 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

my  friend  Tubby,  the  fat  marine, 
standing  on  the  gun-platform  and 
excitedly  waving  his  arms  toward  the 
Vardar  Marshes.  I  run  out  on  deck. 
Tubby  comes  hurrying  along,  shout- 
ing in  the  hoarse  voice  that  goes  with 
immense  girth  and  a  short  neck: 
"See'im,sir?  ATawb!  ATawb!" 
And  so  it  is  a  Taube.  After  a 
momentary  search  of  the  upper 
reaches  of  the  air,  I  spot  him,  a  far- 
distant  dot.  And  as  we  gather  in  a 
tense  little  knot  on  the  after-deck, 
straining  our  eyes,  clawing  tenta- 
tively for  a  peep  through  the  binoc- 
ulars, the  enemy  monoplane  sails 
serenely  toward  us,  and  the  guns 
begin  to  go.  From  the  men-of-war 
near  by,  from  invisible  batteries  con- 
cealed ashore,  the  sharp  cracks  echo, 
and  we  watch  the  oncoming  dot  ten 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  Tubby 
says  ten  thousand  feet,  and  although 
86 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

I  don't  believe  he  knows  anything 
about  it,  he  has  been  in  the  Navy 
and  possesses  the  prestige  of  the 
Senior  Service.  He  certainly  knows 
more  about  it  than  we  do. 

And  observe  how  greedily  we  make 
the  most  of  this  httle  bit  of  war  which 
has  come  to  us.  Now  he  is  right  over 
us,  sailing  across  a  broad  shield  of 
speckless  blue,  and  we  see  the  small 
white  plumes  of  shrapnel  suddenly 
appear,  above,  below,  and  around 
him.  He  sails  on.  He  must  be 
doing  seventy  miles  an  hour.  Some- 
body doubts  this.  We  ignore  him, 
and  push  the  speed  up  to  eighty 
miles.  Say  eighty  miles  an  hour. 
Golly!  That  was  a  close  one.  A 
white  plume  appears  right  in  front  of 
him.  He  sails  on.  Evidently  he 
has  no  bombs.  Tubby  says :  " Tawbs 
don't  carry  no  bombs."  What  a 
mine  of  information  he  is !     Again  a 

87 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

hit,  a  palpable  hit.  But  he  sails  on. 
There  is  something  sublime  about 
this.  Of  course  he  is  a  German  and 
therefore  damnable.  But — but — 
well,  he  is  damnably  adventurous.  I 
wonder  what  he  is  doing.  Has  he  a 
sweetheart,  a  German  Madchen?  I 
am  supposed  to  believe  she  would  not 
have  the  wit  to  love  him  for  this  dare- 
devil eagle-swoop  over  Salonika.  I 
don't  think,  however,  that  patri- 
otism compels  me  to  hate  that  air- 
man up  there.  Crack-crack!  go  the 
guns.  He  sails  on.  He  is,  so  far, 
supreme.  A  dim  sporting  instinct, 
which  used  to  have  free  rein  at  school, 
shoots  through  my  mind  and  I  dis- 
cover in  myself  no  passionate  desire 
to  see  him  hit.  He  himself  seems  to 
have  no  anxieties  whatever.  I  recall 
a  line  from  Shelley: 

He  rides  upon  the  platform  of  the  wind, 
And  laughs  to  hear  the  fireballs  roar  behind. 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

Now  he  is  over  Ben  Lomond  and 
is  turning  toward  Monastir,  whence 
we  suppose  he  has  come.  Other 
batteries  behind  the  town  welcome 
him  and  the  Navy  resigns  itself,  for 
once,  to  frustration.  Crack  after 
crack,  plume  after  plume.  Now  he  is 
behind  a  cloud,  and  our  attention  is 
taken  up  for  a  moment  by  the  sight 
of  our  own  machines  manoeuvring 
for  position  in  the  offing.  And  the 
next  time  we  see  him  he  is  coming 
down.  Tubby  says  so.  Personally, 
I  imagined  him  to  be  going  up; 
but  I  never  contradict  a  navy  man. 
Somebody  else  says  he  is  hit.  Our 
lieutenant,  on  the  upper  deck  with 
the  commander,  looking  through  his 
prismatic  glasses,  says  it  looks  like  it. 
I  glance  at  our  group,  all  eyes  raised 
to  the  sky,  mouths  open,  emblems  of 
receptive  vacuity. 

Reluctantly  we  abandon  our  pre- 
89 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

cious  ^'Tawb''  to  the  inland  ranges 
and  return  to  the  mundane  life  once 
more.  Tubby  walks  to  and  fro,  a 
short  man  of  enormous  size,  dis- 
coursing of  "Tawbs/'  I  call  him  my 
mythological  m.onster,  for  he  has 
served  in  the  "  'Ercles^'  the ''  'Ecuba^' 
the  ^'You  roper j''  the  Endymion  and 
the  ^^Amfi-trite.''  When  we  go  to  sea. 
Tubby  stands  or  sits  by  his  gun  and 
keeps  a  lookout  for  submarines.  He 
is  one  of  Hardy's  Wessex  yokels. 
When  the  war  came,  he  was  malting 
at  Malmesbury,  and  doing  a  small 
delivery-wagon  business  for  a  local 
hardware  store.  He  looks  it.  He 
could  pose  for  John  Bull,  a  beef- 
eating,  ale-drinking,  Saxon  John 
Bull.  Now  he  is  also  an  expert  on 
'Tawbs."  What  tales  he  will  tell  by 
the  malt-house  fires  in  the  winters  to 
come!  Tales,  perhaps,  of  "Tawbs!'' 
And  so,  in  idle  talk  and  modest 
90 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

vigilance,  the  day  wears  on,  until  the 
sun  is  setting  in  turbulent  reds  and 
purples  beyond  the  Vardar,  and  the 
peak  of  Olympos,  showing  for  a  brief 
moment  above  the  billows  of  vapour, 
is  flushed  an  exquisite  pale  rose  colour. 
Lights  begin  to  twinkle  on  the  shore. 
Those  on  day  work  begin  to  appear 
after  their  wash,  loafing  about  until 
dinner,  smoking  cigarettes,  arguing 
after  the  foolish,  dogmatic  way  of 
sailors,  getting  heated  over  nothing, 
condemning  a  nation  in  a  thoughtless 
phrase.  Some  are  writing  home,  for 
a  mail  goes  soon.  Some  come  into 
the  machine-room  for  a  drink  of 
water,  or  for  a  chat. 

The  Fourth  Engineer,  who  had 
viewed  the  aeroplane  dressed  in  blue 
serge  trousers  and  an  unbuttoned 
pajama  jacket,  now  appears  in  his 
uniform,  still  a  little  drowsy  after  his 
day's  sleep,  but  smiling  in  his  pleas- 

91 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

ant  boyish  way.  Our  conversation  is 
not  intellectual.  We  really  have  not 
much  to  say.  It  would  not  bear 
writing  down.  Nor  would  a  comic 
paper  take  our  jokes.  Nevertheless, 
we  talk  and  laugh  and  pass  the  time. 
For  myself,  I  talk  to  everybody:  I 
talk  to  the  nigger  firemen  and  the 
Chinese  cook,  to  the  dog  and  the  cat, 
to  the  canary  in  my  room  and  the 
parrot  who  blasphemes  so  bitterly 
on  the  fore-deck. 

So  I  keep  in  practice.  For  some 
day  we  shall  have  Peace,  and  we  shall 
go  home,  over  the  well-remembered 
road  to  Malta  and  Gib,  and  over  the 
mountainous  western-ocean  swell 
that  is  for  ever  charging  across  the 
Bay.  Some  day  this  will  happen, 
and  we  shall  speak  the  Tuskar  once 
again,  tie  up  in  the  old  dock,  and 
step  ashore.  rVnd  we  shall  take  our 
way,  some  of  us,  through  the  quiet 
92 


A  SIX-HOUR  SHIFT 

countryside,  where  friends  await  us, 
friends  who  will  bid  us  tarry  awhile 
and  tell  them  our  tales  of  foreign 
parts,  as  mariners  have  done  and 
always  will  do,  while  ships  come 
home  from  sea. 


THE    END 


93 


THIS  VOLUME  WAS  PRINTED  BY 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
AT  THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  LONG  ISLAND,  N.  Y. 
THE  PRINTING  WAS  COMPLETED 
IN  THE  MONTH  OF  SEPTEMBER 
MCMXX 


rj^^. 


i. 


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